Melissa Carter back on-air with all the news fit to broadcast

In an interview, Carter said the station, 106.7 FM, is an all-news station that began broadcasting approximately one month ago. Owned by Cumulus — the same company that owns Q100 — the station currently has a relationship with the Atlanta Business Chronicle and Fox 5 for news and weather.

Carter began training for her shift last week and on Friday she “ran the board” solo — that means in addition to reading the news she is in charge of pushing all the buttons at the right time to ensure business news, the weather, traffic, sports and other information airs when it is supposed to.

“I’ve never run a board before. I did a solo shift again on Saturday. Nobody died and the station was not destroyed,” she said with a laugh.

The station is not about opinions, she stressed. It’s only about giving listeners “pure information.” The fact she has an afternoon shift and doesn’t have to get up before daylight every day made the job appealing as well.

“The station works to be fair and give information without controlling how listeners react,” she said. “An all news format is intriguing to me; it seems like a natural progression. And as a newsperson, it’s a nice alternative to listen to when you get in your car.”

For Carter’s opinions, people will just have to read her column, “That’s What She Said.”

“They’ll just have to read my GA Voice articles to hear my harsh opinions or me making fun of myself,” she said.

Many people don’t realize that Carter began as a news person in radio 15 years ago before she became a national personality with the Bert Show and made history as the first out lesbian on a major station in the city and one of the few openly gay morning show personalities in the country.

“This is a chance for me to be in a room full of news people. I will say I feel very proud to hold my own among these seasoned vets. I was already part of the best morning music shows and I was not interested in trying to duplicate that,” she said.

“This is a complement to that.

Carter said she didn’t know if she’d ever return to radio, especially working her great colleagues and friends at the Bert Show. But when she decided to quit the show in April 2011 and seek something else, her colleagues from other stations kept telling her, “It’s in your blood.”

“I never thought I would say it’s in my blood, but to all my colleagues who told me so, you’re right,” she said.

Tune in to Melissa Carter from 3 — 7 p.m.